Agree how design and engineering work together, from handoff to build.
Problems it solves
- “That is not what we designed.”
- The build drifts from the design.
- Escalations that need a leader.
Design workshops and coaching for cross-functional teams
Half-day and full-day workshops, held in person, for design teams and the people they work with, led by Navin Harish, who has led and coached design teams for over twenty-five years.
Four starting points, and a fifth built around your team. Sessions for designers alone are also possible.
Agree how design and engineering work together, from handoff to build.
Agree how designs are reviewed, and how the difficult conversations are handled.
Set an objective before the work starts, and check it afterwards.
Agree a shared process, estimates and records, so quality does not depend on who is on the project.
If you have a problem that none of these workshops addresses cleanly, we can create one customised to your team’s needs.
I have watched the same team do excellent work on one project and mediocre work on the next. It is rarely the people. It is how decisions get made around them.
For two decades, across agencies, enterprises and consulting, including HCL and GlobalLogic, I have helped design teams navigate conflicting opinions, manage stakeholder expectations, communicate decisions and build consensus.
The workshops help designers, and the engineering, product and business people they work with, handle these situations with more clarity, confidence and independence, so decisions get made well and work keeps moving. I write about it on my blog and in my ebook, Beyond the Interface: Thinking, Decisions and the Practice of Design.
A delightful experience is predictable, measurable and repeatable. These describe the design practice itself. The workshops help design, engineering, product and business teams build these into the way they work together.
The workshops help your team estimate effort, timelines and dependencies upfront, and design together with engineering from the start. That means fewer surprises between design and development, and for the product and business teams planning around them.
Design, product and business teams learn to turn vague requests like “make the website better” into clear success criteria agreed upfront, such as a better app rating or a shorter time to complete a task. That removes ambiguity, reduces iterations, and builds trust between the design team and the people it works with, because objectives and outcomes are explicit.
The workshops help your team identify and establish its own processes and reusable practices, so every project starts with a structured approach instead of ad-hoc decisions. The result is more consistent quality, whoever is on the project.
What you share with me stays with you. I do not name or discuss the companies I work with without permission.
You tell me what the team is facing, and we decide together whether and how I can help.
Starting points are chosen, combined or set aside to fit your team.
The problems your team actually faces, across its products and projects, not made-up cases.
Design, engineering and product pulling in the same direction, with less friction and more collaboration.
Every attendee also receives my ebook, Beyond the Interface: Thinking, Decisions and the Practice of Design.
Workshops start at ₹50,000. The price goes up with the size of the group and the length of the session, and we agree it together before anything is booked.
Taxes are extra. Travel and accommodation are extra for workshops outside Delhi NCR.
Smaller team? Tell me, and we will agree a price that works for both of us.
Heads of design and product who want their teams to resolve things without a leader stepping in. I coach alongside your design lead, not instead of them.
Teams of roughly ten to twenty-five where design works with engineering, product or the business.
Managers and learning and development teams who want those groups to work better together.
Individuals looking for career coaching.
Teams that want design work produced for them. For that, see navinharish.com.
Whoever feels the problem. Often that is designers together with engineers, product managers and business owners. Groups of around twenty work well.
Workshops run from four hours to a full day, and some needs take a series. We settle it when we talk.
These workshops are highly collaborative, with participants learning from each other’s experiences and building on the energy of the group. For this reason, all workshops are conducted in person.
I can conduct the workshop at your office, provided you have a sufficiently large conference room, or at a venue of your choice. The company is responsible for booking the venue and making the necessary arrangements.
A team that goes back working better together, and a copy of my ebook, Beyond the Interface: Thinking, Decisions and the Practice of Design, on what makes good design.
What you share with me stays with you. I do not name or discuss the companies I work with unless they ask me to, and I do not put non-public details into AI tools.
Workshops start at ₹50,000, and the price depends on the size of the group and the length of the session. For workshops held outside Delhi NCR, travel and accommodation costs will be charged additionally. See What it costs.
Write to me, and we will talk through what your team is facing.